The invention relates to a cable network repair control system comprising means for receiving data arising from trouble calls reporting faults in a cable network system such as an electrical distribution system.
Heretofore, such systems have been quite passive in their operation and there has been little integration with the network itself and with resources for repairing the faults which arise.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a cable network repair control system which allows trouble calls to be taken and to be analysed.
Another object is that the system assists with location of faults to reduce the average time between taking a trouble call and the fault being repaired.
A still further object is that the system provide for tracking and management of field resources.
According to the invention, there is provided a cable network repair control system comprising a data storage device, a processor, and a plurality of trouble call reception terminals, wherein the processor comprises:
means for maintaining in a customer database an identifier of a network device associated with each customer,
means for automatically determining an associated network device in response to a customer off-supply trouble call,
means for maintaining an off-supply network device dataset of associated network devices for current customer trouble calls,
an inference engine comprising means for processing data from the off-supply network device dataset, network device failure probability data, and network connectivity data as input parameter values to automatically infer which network devices are faulty, and
job control means for generating a job record in a job dataset for repair of a network device inferred as being faulty.
In one embodiment, the inference engine comprises means for automatically operating in response to receipt of a subsequent trouble call associated with a particular network device.
Preferably, the system comprises means for maintaining a call dataset of current trouble calls, and for interrogating said dataset to determine if a call is a subsequent call.
In another embodiment, the inference engine comprises means for processing environmental condition data as input parameter values.
In a further embodiment, the inference engine comprises means for applying the input parameter values as weighted factors.
In one embodiment, the inference engine comprises means for performing interactive voice processing to:
automatically identify customers affected by a fault;
select customers according to network connectivity and poll the selected customers to determine if they are still off-supply, and
feed the poll response data back as input parameter values.
Preferably, the polling means comprises an interactive voice processor for automatically transmitting a voice message requesting a response indicating if the customer is still off-supply.
In a further embodiment, the system further comprises a resource control engine comprising means for allocating a job by determining an appropriate repair resource using resource data and vehicle position data as input parameters.
Preferably, the resource control engine comprises means for interpreting vehicle position data embedded in GPS signals.
In another embodiment, the job control means comprises means for transmitting a repair instruction to a resource using radiation signals to issue a job.
In a further embodiment, the job control means comprises means for updating an assignment dataset comprising records storing for each repair job a job identifier, a resource identifier, and a flag indicating whether the job is allocated.
In a further embodiment, the system further comprises a reporting module comprising means for dynamically maintaining a network repair status table drawing data from the call dataset, the job dataset, and the assignment dataset, the status table indicating number of allocated and issued repair jobs on a regional basis.
Preferably, the system stores a dataset indicating a grid reference for each network device, and the customer database includes a grid reference for each customer. In a further embodiment, the reporting module comprises means for using grid reference data to group jobs on a regional basis.
In another embodiment, the reporting module comprises means for monitoring real time and for generating alerts for jobs according to time duration since a trouble call was received.
Preferably, the reporting module comprises means for automatically generating a table of more detailed report data in response to a query.